Louisiana is known as the Sportsman's Paradise, and its a moniker that's well-deserved. Natives have heard all their lives about unfettered coastal subsidence that gobbles our marshes, turning them from fish nurseries and bird rookeries into vast, open-water nothingness. That might lead some to believe there's not much left along the tattered sole of America's boot.

But even in its damaged state, our coast is unlike anything else in the world. Its intricate backwaters stretch for days, with every bayou leading to ponds connected by trenasses that drain yet more backwaters. Fish them, and you'll get lost in a world from which you never want to return.

It's these vast, unending wetlands that make Louisiana the envy of anglers in every other state in the union. Rod-toting visitors leave with mouths agape and hearts overflowing with rich tales of fish in sizes and numbers and eagerness unseen anywhere else.

What few of these tourists have yet encountered, however, is a situation that's becoming more dire for South Louisiana anglers: The coastal wetlands are becoming off-limits, threatening to convert Louisiana from a Sportsman's Paradise to a Rich Man's Playground.

Fish some of the marshes around Lafitte, Leeville or Golden Meadow, and you're as likely to catch a trespassing ticket as you are a redfish. A large section of marsh between Fourchon and Grand Isle -- long popular with kayakers -- recently became the latest slice of paradise to be taken off anglers' fishing menu.

Prior to 2003, landowners were legally required to post private land to inform the public that trespass laws would be enforced. That year, however, the state Legislature changed the law, placing the onus on individuals to know whether the area they're entering is privately owned or not.

That's simple enough to do on dry land, but in the coastal marshes -- not so much. The State Land Office uses complex analysis to determine if sections of marsh are still privately owned, or if natural processes of erosion and subsidence have converted them to "arms of the sea," in which case they are sometimes public. The office also considers navigability, which, remarkably enough, doesn't mean whether the water is navigable, according to the Jindal Administration's Communications Office.

Responding to a list of questions submitted to the State Land Office, the Communications Office said whether a boat can float on a section of tidal water today is irrelevant.

"The State Land Office utilizes the Louisiana state case-law definition that navigability means capable of supporting commerce at statehood," the office wrote. "The State Land Office must attempt to determine navigability at the time of statehood."

That's right. The State Land Office must look back at maps from 1812 to determine if a waterway or waterbody was navigable enough to float commercial boats two centuries ago. For anglers, that's problematic because there weren't exactly a whole lot of satellites sending down aerial photographs of the marsh in 1812. Cartographers back then labeled major waterbodies and thoroughfares, and everything else they referred to as "wastelands."

These "wastelands" were pock-marked with lakes and ponds and sliced with bayous and trenasses, but if they weren't relevant to commerce, they weren't mapped by the cartographers. Over the years, the wastelands have been purchased by individuals and corporations, and today, much of the Louisiana coast is privately owned.

That includes the tidal waters that flow through and around the marshes. In every other coastal American state, tidal waters belong to the public, and anglers are within their legal rights to go wherever the tide takes them.

In Louisiana, however, courts have ruled that landowners may claim even the tidal waters adjacent to their marshes. That's because of the outfall of a case that didn't even originate in Louisiana.

In Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Mississippi, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-3 decision that ownership of lands subject to the Public Trust Doctrine includes all tidal lands. In Louisiana, the Public Trust Doctrine states that "Louisiana claims the beds and bottoms of all navigable waters and the banks or shores of bays, arms of the sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and navigable lakes and declares the state's policy to be that these lands and water bottoms are public lands and shall be protected, administered, and conserved to best ensure full public navigation, fishery, recreation, and other interests."

That would seem to have been a major victory for Louisiana's anglers, but as part of the ruling, the court said, "It has been long-established that the individual states have the authority to define the limits of lands held in public trust and to recognize private rights in such lands as they see fit."

In 1992, the Louisiana Legislature surrendered what the Supreme Court ruled belonged to the citizenry by stating "... the Phillips decision neither reinvests the state, or a political subdivision thereof, with any ownership of such lands, nor does the state, or a political subdivision thereof, acquire any new ownership of such property."

The Legislature's action was solidified by a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in 1995's Dardar v. Lafourche Realty that tidelands that are not seashore or sea bottoms may be privately owned.

Since then, some Louisiana landowners have staked their claims, employing local sheriff's departments to patrol their marshes, citing those who cross an unmarked line. Others have begun to charge anglers to access "their" tidal water. Those unfortunates who venture into the area without the appropriate windshield stickers on their boats are ticketed.

The State Land Office has created an interactive website showing boaters and anglers which waters are owned by the state, and the maps are frightening. The state claims most major waterbodies and deep navigable bayous. Everything else belongs to private individuals or corporations.

That means virtually anytime an angler goes shallow-water redfishing, he or she is breaking the law. Not only that, but anglers become outlaws simply by running their boats in Southeast Louisiana's marshes. It's nearly impossible not to do so.

Consider this: Much of the marsh in the Delacroix area is owned by the Delacroix Corporation, which, so far, has been accommodating to anglers. At any point, however, Delacroix Corporation could elect to close off public access, and anglers would be almost entirely locked out of all of Delacroix's productive waters.

The lower part of Bayou Gentilly and nearly all of Little Lake are owned by Delacroix Corporation, as is all of Four Horse Lake. Just try to get anywhere in Delacroix without running through Bayou Gentilly or crossing Little Lake.

That's not to mention the thousands of acres of lesser lakes, redfish ponds and small bayous that could be cut off from public access at any moment.

Local bass tournaments and big-name redfish events hosted in Southeast Louisiana -- including the state-run Louisiana Saltwater Series -- all have stipulations in their rules forbidding competitors from fishing or traversing private waters, but they're routinely ignored. It's virtually impossible to get anywhere along the Louisiana coast without at least crossing private waters. Redfish tournaments are almost always won by anglers fishing waters the state's map shows are privately owned.

It may be just a matter of time before a losing angler spies the winner fishing water the state hasn't claimed and sues for what he views is his rightful share of the purse.

Most trails lead back to money, and that's certainly the case with the privatization of Louisiana's marshes, according to Mark Davis, senior research fellow and director of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy.

"The ownership of mineral rights is also at stake, as are big chunks of local tax rolls," he said. "The divergent interests of private landowners, local governments and the state in a very dynamic landscape makes for a confusing situation -- one that tends to put fishers, hunters, boaters and birders on the hot seat."

That's not a place they want to be when they're out for recreation. When chased off of certain areas -- or worse, cited -- most anglers simply find someplace else to fish.

But that's becoming harder to do as more of the coast gets cut off to public access. Anglers who want to ensure they're not breaking the law should fish nothing but bays, large lakes and wildlife management areas. Davis would like to see the latter option -- or something similar to it -- expanded.

"There have been efforts to put more of the coast's surface lands into conservation ownership that would accommodate traditional uses such as fishing, but those have been slow to take hold for a variety of reasons," he said. "That could be part of a solution."

Until that happens, landowners and the agents of coastal parishes need to relax, in Davis' opinion.

"I can't imagine it works for anybody to arrest everybody hunting and fishing in our marshes," he said. "It is bad business, and we don't have jails big enough to hold that many people."